


Democrat Hot Springs

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 10:24:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3324059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set during 8x21, 'Existence'.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Democrat Hot Springs

**Author's Note:**

> Set during 8x21, 'Existence'.

‘You said,’ Dana begins, and then pauses for a moment. ‘Earlier, you said that people stopped coming here because the springs dried up.’

‘That’s what John told me,’ Monica says, watching her carefully.

‘Do you think they—that some of them believed in miracles? That they thought the waters would, I don’t know, heal them?’

‘Maybe. Probably.’ She puts her hand on Dana’s arm, her thumb against the inside of Dana’s elbow. ‘Dana? You okay?’

‘What? Yes, of course. I was just wondering.’

‘Bit of a non sequitur,’ Monica says, although it isn’t really.

Dana gives her a small smile. ‘Something to pass the time while we wait,’ she says lightly, fooling neither of them, but Monica smiles back anyway as though she believes Dana, squeezing her arm once before going back outside to get another bucket of water that they probably won’t need.

 

\--

 

Outside the house, the night air smells rusty and abandoned, as though their arrival has stirred up dust and ashes.

There’s a rustling from somewhere in the surrounding dark, the night humid and stirring with invisible life. Monica ignores it all, intent on her simple mission. Her body’s tired already, from the drive, from cleaning up the house, from nervous anticipation. She rummages in her pockets and finds her cigarettes, taking only a few drags from one of them before stubbing it out in the dry mud and hurrying back inside.

 

\--

 

‘It’s almost like a church, this place,’ she says later, mostly just to break the silence. 

Dana’s been lying awake for a while. She turns her head to the window, the picture of Moses drawing water from a rock. ‘Do you believe in miracles, Agent Reyes?’

‘I, well, I don’t not believe.’ She nods toward Dana’s necklace. ‘I suppose you do?’

Dana doesn’t answer the question. ‘What is it, do you think, that makes people believe in aliens and ghosts and, and chupacabras, but not in the existence of God?’

‘It’s not something that I’ve never thought about before, but…’

‘But?’

‘But I’ve never found any answers, you know?’ Monica shifts a bit from her position at the edge of the bed, drawing up both her legs. ‘I guess it’s a question of what you believe in the most.’

Dana makes a non-committal sound and they don’t talk again for a while, but the silence is comfortable, comforting even, curling around them in the half-light from the candles Monica’s found.

 

\--

 

Somewhere between Monica’s cigarette breaks and Dana’s uneasy napping, they find themselves talking about Melissa.

‘She was a lot like you. Opinionated, outspoken. Pretty.’ Dana smiles. ‘When I was a teenager, I’d have given anything to look like her. She didn’t… she wasn’t always like that. Spiritual, I mean. If that’s even the word.’ She looks to Monica, as though asking if it’s indeed the word.

Monica smiles. ‘It’s close enough, I guess. What happened? To make her change, I mean.’

‘I don’t know, really. There was this… we had this talk, once. It was night, and we were alone, kind of like you and I are right now. I’d just decided to quit medicine and join the FBI. My parents were disappointed, but Missy… she said exactly what I needed to hear.’ Another little smile, the echo of a faraway memory. ‘I teased her, said she couldn’t sound more like a Hallmark card, but, but she was right.’

‘What did she say?’

‘You know, I don’t remember exactly? Not the words, I mean. I know she said something about how it doesn’t really matter what we do, that the people we meet along the way are the most important. Something like that, you know what people say about the journey being more important? Something like that.’

Monica looks down at her hands, fingers curled together in her lap. She isn’t really sure what to say, but it feels like one of those times when you don’t really have to say anything.

‘Thanks for listening to me ramble on,’ Dana says after a few minutes. ‘You can sleep, you know. I’ll keep watch for a while.’

 

\--

 

Monica dozes intermittently, never really falling completely asleep. Through the stained glass window she can still see the too-bright star. They haven’t talked about it, although she’s pretty sure Dana can’t have missed seeing it.

The old iron bed is large enough for both of them to stretch out in, but neither of them is making full use of it. Dana’s half-sitting, half-reclining with her lower back supported by pillows, and Monica’s with her back against the opposite end of the bed.

It’s the kind of night that gets colder as it gets closer to the dawn. Her toes are cold despite her thick socks. Dana picks up one end of the blanket and tosses it over Monica’s feet, enveloping them in warmth. ‘Sleep,’ she says again. ‘I’ll wake you if I need to.’ 

 

\--

 

It’s an hour or two later, when both of them have given up on the idea of sleep and Dana has moved to the table, her forehead creased and sweaty, that Monica tells her that she looks amazingly beautiful. She hears the words in her head before she speaks them and knows they sound unbelievably cheesy, but she knows she means them.

In another world—in a different context, even—they’d be different people, and maybe Monica would say more, maybe Melissa would be here, picking up on the same energies that Monica is. Dana asks her about whether she’s feeling any ‘vibrations’ and Monica isn’t sure if she’s serious or trying to keep her mind off what’s coming. She suspects that the question is more to distract Monica than anything else.

‘I think it’s very brave,’ Monica says, not looking at Dana. ‘What you’re doing, it’s, you’re very brave. Not the whole.’ She waves a hand in the space between them. ‘The whole, you know, everything.’ She pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingers. ‘I’m not making any sense, am I.’

Dana smiles tiredly at her. ‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘I think I know what you mean.’

‘We need some more water,’ Monica says after a while, even though they really don’t. She gets to her feet, her fingers twitching for the feel of a cigarette between them, and Dana lets her go.


End file.
